A meticulous recreation of a famous episode from the American Civil War, The General (1926) was co-written and directed by Buster Keaton, who also starred in it as a Southern locomotive engineer whose life is disrupted by the outbreak of hostilities.
Strongly criticised by many reviewers in 1927, the film has since come to be recognised as one of the greatest achievements of American silent cinema.
Drawing on a wide range of archival sources, Peter Krämer's study placesThe Generalin the context of Keaton's long career on stage and screen, and of Hollywood cinema in the 1920s. It explores how Keaton came to select and realise his most ambitious project, offering the first detailed comparison between the film and the book it was based upon, and also examines its marketing and financial performance.
Krämer's systematic and detailed analysis of this story about love and war highlights the film's distinctive style and thematic concerns, revealing complexity in its apparently simple narrative and tragedy in its happy ending.
